


The Way His Hair Shone in the Flames

by Gemichin



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hoshi Meguri (IDOLiSH7), Internal musings, M/M, barely implied sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 10:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemichin/pseuds/Gemichin
Summary: The thoughts and emotions of a storm that continually rages and the fire that refuses to burn out in the middle of it.





	The Way His Hair Shone in the Flames

If he closed his eyes, he could recall the memory as if he were breathing. It flowed from the far reaches of his mind, seeing it play like a film behind his eyelids with fluidity. He could see a glint of metal aimed at his throat, pale skin that seemed almost translucent, eyes that burned with a dull hatred unlike anything he’d ever seen… And fire that was glowing softly in the moonlight. Ah… But it wasn’t fire, it was a long mess of fiery red hair. He could recall that being the first thing to catch his eye, his attention momentarily stolen before the weight of the situation could fully hit him. An assassin after his life, seconds away from stealing it with the kunai held swiftly between slim, gloved fingers.

It was Orion’s first encounter with Erin, the famed Crimson Blade whose name was known yet shrouded in mystery, a red string tangling around his throat that was bound to the fingers of which held the blade that could have ended it for him with no remorse. However, where the string could have been snapped by even the slightest tug on either end, Orion instead chose to wind it tighter around his neck, weaving the thread between the assassin’s fingers in messy fashions.

He made a deal with death.

His family had drawn away from what had been drilled into Orion’s head from the time of his youth. War was prevalent for success; yet at the suffering of the people, Orion found that it did little good on either end of the spectrum. His ideals, vastly different from that of his family’s, were snuffed by blood spilled history spewed from tainted mouths who refused to listen to reason. The council that had engraved their place within the castle wretched any form of repeal that Orion would have tried to make. To them, war meant stability, and anyone who dared tried to speak against it were nothing short of traitors.

Orion’s love for his people was thrown in his face, the threat of being branded for treason looming ever high above his head.

It made Erin’s presence all the more coveted, a boy of a tender age born to fire and hatred that instilled the knowledge of how to end a life. Born to the outer gates where war had taken their harshest tolls, Orion would have wondered how Erin would have lived his life had he not grown to be the assassin that had once nearly stolen his life. Yet all the more, there was a hidden gratitude that the tides had ebbed into the favor they had.

Erin was a Kingmaker.

Erin was his.

In exchange for a promise of salvation and peace, Erin would make Orion King. Decades of war that had torn his beloved home in two, Orion wanted to stitch the seams back together. However, the disdain towards the royal family was too great for him to repair alone. He needed someone from the other side of the wall that had been built by his family. Erin was the missing chess piece he’d needed, there was one final war to win. Orion was confident, and he was grateful to have Erin at his side when his father and grandfather were banished under the guise of murder.

Orion could recall the night of which had ascended him to the throne. Looming over the enraged kingdom, the air of furious hatred was tangible. Orion could feel it thick in his throat, his voice struggling to remain steady as he addressed the people who looked towards him with awe and fear. Confirming what rumors had spread through the kingdom at the speed of a wildfire blazing a forest to ashes, he took on the role of the new King, the royal successor who had bathed in the blood of those who had drilled him for this very moment. The embers of the torches that lit across the land, held by citizens and soldiers alike, blustered into the night sky tinged with the reddened hues of the flames that reflected within Orion’s eyes as he stood still. The austere King, denouncing everything that the previous King and council had set as holy law, was only distracted when he caught eye of the assassin standing to his right.

Erin’s eyes were fixed upon the crowd beneath them. The blazing red hues sparkled with the embers of orange and yellow from the pyre lit amongst the bodies of the kingdom’s citizens. That head of fire atop his head shimmered with the luminescence of the flames that danced along the breeze, strands of lustrous fires tousled in intimate fashions against his cheeks. The way his hair shone in the flames, the mixtures of emotions unable to be read behind those eyes that seemed to see far more than what Orion could grasp; it was a safe bet to say that the newly appointed King found the very one who had brought him to this point was every bit alike to a burning inferno. Unable to be contained, willing to spiral in a fashion that suited him best.

Erin was, for no better description, beautiful.

It was a thought that lingered heavy in the corners of Orion’s mind, only made prevalent when the King found his eyes following the movements of the once esteemed assassin wherever he went. Erin had remained at his side, taking on the role of his personal attendant. The days were no less busy, and the assassin’s demeanor had shifted from the days of when their relationship was strained by the missions they had taken upon themselves to complete. Erin had proved he was no less the fiery storm he had always been, a firecracker popping and surprising everyone around him. He was far more playful that Orion anticipated, and the King couldn’t help but wonder if the cheerful teasing that often drew out flustered responses were forced. By the time he was able to think more on it, however, the moment of asking had already been long forgotten in lieu of harsh replies that flew from his mouth as if Erin had been pulling on puppet strings.

The attendant followed little command once the threats of war had diminished to dying embers in a hearth, shifting only when rumors attempted to create a new spark amongst the ashes. He opted instead to follow his own beat, rousing out what he considered amusing scoldings and retorts from the King who couldn’t keep up with his pace.

Erin had fulfilled his promise to Orion, and the once well known assassin had achieved something new entirely. He had ascended the prince to the throne willfully, had trusted the very enemy he had been sent to destroy. In a way, Orion could see that Erin had tipped the scale between the people he’d known his entire life, and the royal family he was meant to see the end to. The council had repeatedly tried to get Orion’s views of the redhead to change, only to be met with harsh reprimand.

The majority of the council had been disbanded upon Orion’s succession to the throne, yet many of them had stayed behind despite the forced changes that the King refused to allow them to budge on. They couldn’t afford the loss, and Orion couldn’t afford to let them go, thus a balance was set between them that Erin held a tight grip onto as he stood beside the stone walled King. Orion knew of Erin’s importance despite his job having been completed. While he wouldn’t ever speak the words aloud, there was a silent admiration for the attendant for having placed every bet in order to see his wishes for the citizens granted in full fruition.

Erin loved the people as much as Orion did, even without a word spoken in regards to it. It shone amongst the fires that danced within the assassin’s eyes the night that Orion took on his role as King, staring into the crowd with an unsmiling face. For everything that had come after, Orion thought that the Erin of that night, the Erin he watched shine among the fluttering sparks of ash, was the most earnest he had ever seen. Watching him stare into the faces of everyone who had entrusted him with the task of saving them, Erin had made a silent promise. It was a promise that the days following would bring them ease, days that could be enjoyed without a lingering fear of something solemn to tear them from momentary pieces of happiness. In this way, Orion knew that Erin had needed him from the start, in the same way that he had needed Erin.

A King would always fail if not for wise words spoken without corruption, honesty in its most innocent state from one who had lived it first hand. Orion depended on Erin for such details that he would have easily missed and couldn’t depend on the council to supply him. Words were easy to twist, stories formed that would only benefit those who yearned to break and bend whatever was within arm’s reach to obtain the desired outcome regardless of who suffered at the end result. Erin was dependant upon Orion for the outcomes that would benefit those he had promised to save. The assassin was no leader, and found that the shadows suited his tastes far better, thus he could only push Orion in a direction that Orion knew he needed to go. An assassin was no King, and Orion was a wonderful King as far as Erin was concerned.

Despite the stern expressions that faltered little when it came to the affairs of the Kingdom, Orion listened. Erin could count on the ears of the King to never turn deaf when it came to what was needed to be said. It made his tasks more interesting, picking at the edges that were meant to be unbreakable. Orion was as every bit a human as he could be. He flustered easily, something that the assassin in no way grew tired of, there was always some way to rouse out a reaction to anything that shook his direct course of action. Erin had taken to filling his days with searching out the minute details that could break the stone cold expression within stormy eyes that raged on for the people the King loved so much.

His job as an assassin had long since been hung up in the past where wars had been the daily norm, despite how he kept up with the training that had honed his skill to precise accuracy for the rare occurrences when danger started to loom along the horizon and in the days that followed to where he had taken on the role of Orion’s personal attendant, he craved for ways to appease his boredom. Whether it was to guard the Star Shard that Orion prized with every bit of life he claimed within his chest or to linger over the King’s shoulder while he read through reports that piled upon his desk, Erin slipped between the boundaries of the royal and the common.

While this road hadn’t been one that Erin had expected to walk along, let alone one that he tread along with ease, the assassin couldn’t say he regretted his choice the night he had met Orion face to face. The then prince had stared Erin in the eyes, ignoring the lingering traces of fear that had edged into the corners of his vision for having stared death the face, and had offered him a choice. The assassin had mused it over for the days after he had already accepted the bargain that had been placed before him, wondering if what he had decided would result in an ending that truly would work to the benefit of the kingdom he called home. There had already been an outcry, rage at the assassin who had seemingly betrayed everyone who had placed their trust in him, and for a brief moment, Erin had wondered if he had been deceived. However, in place of the doubts that troubled him at night, Orion had filled the spaces with stern yet earnest actions that remained concrete despite the somewhat choppy ways he executed them. A King before having been fully ready, Erin watched Orion stumble along while holding onto the promise he’d made with a white knuckled grip.

For that much, Erin could take comfort in knowing he hadn’t made a mistake. He had chosen the right path of which to walk even if the steps taken had made him stumble in a way he was unaccustomed to.

He would make Orion King by any means necessary.

Orion was a storm, winds and waves that clashed and collided with anyone who dared to oppose him. His belief in his kingdom was solid, a stone wall built along the shoreline bearing down anything that tried to crash against it. His love for the people was a solid foundation, lightning and thunder that leveled any sort of obstacle that tried to rise against it. Erin found himself drawn to the King, fire unyielding to the tempest that threatened to snuff its life to ash. The assassin was pulled to the danger, willing to risk injury for the sake of Orion’s ideals. In the same fashion, he found it addicting to test Orion’s limits, pulling at the strings of what held the King together. The responses where Orion flustered and floundered, cornered by the knowledge that Erin wouldn’t bend to his commands to a certain degree, were a form of ecstasy. The smiles that the assassin played alongside what was meant to be harsh scoldings only proved a further level of rapture, a bliss that he couldn’t shy away from.

In this form, Erin found love between the lines of what separated him from the King. Tracing along the edges that threatened to cut into the boundary, the assassin could claim to be closer to Orion than anyone else. Evident by the replies of which Orion refuted, Erin knew that the line was clearly defined, well known by the King himself.

It was a line meant to be crossed, destined by fate, pulled together by the red string that was wound so tightly between Erin’s fingers and Orion’s neck. A surge of emotion that fueled the fire within the raging squall, it was a dangerous game where both sides would lose should one choose to give even the slightest bit. The corners had blurred together, shifting from angered words spurred on by constant provoking to mouths clashing against each other in a mess of teeth and heavy breaths. A spark of lightning from the storm igniting fire to everything it could touch, the King and the assassin fell to the feeling of their hands that couldn’t get enough of what they could grab onto. It was a constant battle, a barrage of bruises against skin where clothes hid the marks left behind from the battlefield that had made the bedsheets a tangled reminder of how hard they had fought against each other in a never ending feud.

The assassin had found his ultimate opponent, one that his blades couldn’t draw blood from nor one he could strike down with ease as he was used to. The King had found his weakness, one that he had to keep hidden from anyone who dared to look at with prying eyes, whispered words amongst the halls being silenced immediately with a single glare from where he walked.

For the years to follow, Orion could count on Erin to be by his side, to edge him into the direction that he desired to go when foreign hands attempted to tug him into a different direction. Erin, in kind, could count on Orion to continue onwards with the love of his kingdom burning brightly within his heart that was stitched onto his sleeve for all to see.

Orion was a storm feared and loved by the people he had sworn to protect through the winds and rain. The only time his gaze could be stolen was by the burning inferno that raged relentlessly within the tempest of which it had taken root.

The eyes of which remained grey with the stone hard determination reflected only the colors that danced with the way Erin’s hair shone in the flames.


End file.
